Calgary — Albertans and their politicians are accustomed to being used as the socially conservative bogeymen of Confederation: the Reform Party, and later the Conservatives, were long accused of harbouring a hidden agenda on contentious social issues.

But in a provincial election race quickly splitting across philosophical lines, Alberta’s own long-governing Progressive Conservative party is the one warning Albertans against allegedly hard-right policies of Wildrose, the young party threatening to topple the four-decade old Tory dynasty.

Same-sex marriage, abortion and fears about the avowed social conservatives among Wildrose’s slate of candidates are becoming political fodder as the Tories struggle to regain a lead in the polls.

But the latest focus on so-called conscience rights — the right of a marriage commissioner to refuse to perform gay marriages, or a doctor to turn away an abortion — is a “tactic of desperation, a Hail Mary, if you like,” said University of Calgary political scientist Barry Cooper.

The PCs are taking tricks straight from the election playbook of federal Liberal campaigns, Prof. Cooper said. “Where else are they going to look?” he asked. “Normally, the only way of dealing with Alberta conservatives that had any success at all was what the federal Liberals [did], and most of that success came from outside the province.”

The right-wing Wildrose Party has steered around socially conservative red lines, trying to run a campaign focusing mostly on fiscal issues and accountability. But as the party vaulted into the early lead of the race, its platform came under increased scrutiny: particularly, the party’s stances on abortion and conscience rights. Although Wildrose has said it has no intention to legislate on abortion — which is primarily a federal issue in any case — leader Danielle Smith said, the party could allow a voter-initiated referenda on defunding the practice from the provincial health program to take place if it passed muster with a federal judge and a petition with the signatures of one-fifth of the population.

And Ms. Smith has defended conscience rights enshrining protection for marriage commissioners opposed to same-sex weddings or health care workers who want to avoid performing abortions or prescribing contraceptives. On the campaign trail, PC leader Alison Redford said she was “frightened” by such talk.

‘There is still an undercurrent among social conservatives that it should be anybody’s right to opt out of any service they object to’

“I was absolutely amazed we were having this conversation in Alberta because I believe that all Albertans want to live in a place where we respect each other, where we feel safe,” she told Postmedia last week.

For the Tories, the issue has provided a wedge to divide an electorate that appears increasingly comfortable with the idea of changing the provincial government. The Wildrose has been leading polls through the first two weeks of the campaign, but a Postmedia poll conducted over the weekend suggests support for the Wildrose had dropped by six percentage points.

For practical purposes, the issue doesn’t actually mean much. Health care providers already have conscience clauses codified in their own standards of practice. Both the Alberta College of Pharmacists, and the College of Physicians and Services allow practitioners to opt-out of procedures or services that they find personally problematic. However, health care workers must then refer patients to other facilities.

Although long part of the Wildrose platform, conscience rights raised eyebrows at the Rocky Mountain Civil Liberties Association when Ms. Smith participated in its survey in August last year.

“There is still an undercurrent among social conservatives that it should be anybody’s right to opt out of any service they object to,” said Hal Joffe, the vice president of the association. “Anyone accepting an appointment to perform a public service should perform that service for all Albertans who seek to have [it].”

Entrenching conscience rights, he contends, would particularly penalize rural Albertans who may have limited access to doctors, pharmacists or marriage commissioners.

On the ground, however, that’s rarely how things work out. Celia Posyniak, the executive director of Calgary’s Kensington Clinic, a facility providing abortions to women in southern Alberta, said women outside the big cities already routinely leave their communities for abortions. The vast majority of the province’s procedures are conducted in one of two private clinics in Edmonton and Calgary, or in Calgary’s Peter Lougheed Centre hospital. “We hire doctors in our clinic who want to be here,” Ms. Posyniak said. “If a doctor doesn’t want to perform an abortion, he or she certainly wouldn’t.”

‘We’re not paid by the government. We’re private contractors’

A spokesman for Service Alberta, meanwhile, said the province has received no complaints from same-sex couples seeking to marry in the province about unwilling commissioners.

“We’re not paid by the government. We’re private contractors,” said Bruce Adlington, who has been a commissioner for five years. “We’re paid by the clients.” Most commissioners travel throughout the province to perform ceremonies, he added, so he couldn’t foresee any same-sex couple being denied a wedding, even in rural areas. Besides, he said, marriage commissioners who support same-sex marriage often advertise that on their websites, or in gay publications.

But whatever the minimal practical effect of Ms. Smith’s stance on conscience rights, it would appear to be beside the point. The Wildrose has long distinguished itself as a defender of individual rights, a stance at odds with a Tory party that is increasingly being seen as more Progressive than Conservative. Ms. Redford now appears determined to cast that progressivism as a strength.